JOHN BERGER / JBERGER@STARBULLETIN.COM Margaret Cho met backstage with Bruce Daniels, the comic who opened for her Saturday night at the Waikiki Shell. The sign was a gift from Cho fans Nick Robertson and Kurt Barroe.

Cho blends ribald wit
with sharp social commentary

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Review by John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.com

Margaret Cho looked like a beauty contestant as she took possession of the stage at the Waikiki Shell Saturday night. Striding out in high-heeled boots and a hot pink outfit that combined a low-cut top with loose harem-style pants, her hair a golden-brown mane cascading over bare shoulders, Cho could have been a contestant in the Cherry Blossom Festival pageant or any of the other Asian-American babes-on-parade "cultural" events.

Yeah, right! Cho stopped a few minutes into the show and struggled out of her boots -- revealing they were thigh-highs -- with an assist from her opening act, gay-and-proud-of-it comic Bruce Daniels. A few minutes later, she yanked off the wig and got down.

Down and dirty? Let's say frank, explicit and funny. Cho shared more than most of us would expect to learn about her, er, well, her approach to the styling of her intimate areas. The "I can't believe someone would have asked her this" sketch was one of the most memorable moments in a great show.

Cho explained that she had invited an audience of supposedly witty and intelligent people to ask questions during one of her shows and had expected inquiries about her career or perhaps her support of gay/lesbian issues. Instead she was asked about things that for the most part can't be described in depth here.

FORfolks who knew what to expect, Cho was better than ever. She explained why monogamy is "weird" and why she's decided to adopt rather than "breed." Cho's description of watching a friend give birth wasn't a satire of the piece on birth in "The Vagina Monologues," but put the experience into a completely different perspective.

Cho added impact elsewhere as she took on various dialects. She delivered much of her material with an inner-city African-American accent, punched up other bits with stereotypical Asian-accented English and also portrayed several clueless Caucasian-American types.

Throughout the 75-minute show, Cho reaffirmed that she is not a "female comic" who trades on her gender for material, but a unique comic talent who happens to be a woman.

Cho's "Revolution" tour may be taking her deeper into social commentary than previous shows, but she does it with rare skill. It really spoils the flow when an artist stops entertaining in order to rant about this pet issue or that, but Cho morphed perfectly from her risqué comedienne persona to serious social commentator -- notwithstanding the fact that she was addressing a crowd already on her side.

She spoke eloquently of the human costs of war, racism and prejudice against homosexuals.

Cho ran down a long list of stereotypical Asian characters she'll never play and capped it with a reworked version of "Madame Butterfly" delivered in a contemporary African-American ghetto accent.

She also mentioned the impact of the mainstream media in defining beauty -- Asian-American women used to put tape on their eyelids to create "fashionable" double lids but now get plastic surgery to "correct" their natural features.

Cho spoke at length on her experiences as a second-generation American torn between two cultures. There was relatively light stuff, like not being able to trade her Korean food at lunch, and heavier issues involved with being an ethnic and racial minority on the mainland.

Cho took the show in another direction when she described how her father coped with his mother's slow death from Alzheimer's, her comments a striking contrast to the aggressive and abrasive material of years' past. As Cho bared her soul, she connected with the crowd on a completely different level and offered perspectives on life that transcend race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.

Cho's command of physical comedy was an important element in a story about an airline's "Asian chicken salad" that wasn't in fact Asian; her discussion of various aspects of sexual relations, which had the crowd roaring; and an extremely long and detailed account of being trapped in traffic when she needed to, er, use the restroom in a big way. The crowd loved that story, too!

The impact was enhanced by the excellent work of a camera operator who captured her facial expressions and broad physical skills for the enjoyment of those in the relatively cheap seats.

The Shell ushers, one of them, anyway, also contributed to the show by carrying a towel so that Cho's fans wouldn't have to sit on wet chairs.

With 2003 not yet at the halfway point, it is impossible to say whether Honolulu will see another superstar comic as good in his or her way as Cho, but it doesn't seem likely that we'll see a better blending of adult comedy and social commentary than Margaret Cho shared at the Shell on Saturday.

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